Kim Kardashian gunpoint robbery sparks manhunt in Paris

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Kardashian West, the American reality TV star, was in Paris for fashion week when a gang of masked men wearing jackets marked “police” entered the luxury apartment building where she was staying at 2.30am on Monday.

Three men tied up the receptionist downstairs and stood guard by the door. Two more men went up to Kardashian West’s bedroom where she was lying on her bed. They held a gun to her head, tied her up and escaped with millions of pounds worth of jewellery.

West was on stage at the Meadows music and arts festival in New York when he was told about the robbery and he stopped his performance, leaving the stage halfway through the song Heartless.

The rapper’s show in Philadelphia on 4 October will now take place on 13 December, and his Detroit show, originally scheduled for 6 October, has been moved to 22 December. The Saint Pablo tour will resume on 7 October in Chicago, and ticket holders for postponed concerts can use their original tickets for the new December dates.

The robbery was the biggest jewellery theft from an individual in France for more than 20 years. Among the items stolen was reportedly Kardashian West’s €3.5m (£3m) wedding ring and another €4.5m worth of jewels. It is not clear whether some of the jewels were on loan to Kardashian West or whether she owned them.

Le Parisien has reported that her stylist, who had been hiding in a bedroom during the swift attack, untied her and raised the alarm.

Her personal bodyguard, who had trailed her to all events during fashion week, was not present at her apartment during the attack, French media has reported. That night, Kardashian West had “loaned” her bodyguard to one of her sisters who was going out to a Paris nightclub, a source close to the investigation told Agence France-Presse.

The fact that the bodyguard was not present when the gang struck has raised speculation in Paris that the thieves had either been trailing and observing Kardashian West extremely closely and took advantage of her lack of security at that moment, or they had been possibly tipped off by somebody close to the star’s entourage that he was not there.

The thieves fled on bicycles. They have not been caught and the police investigation continues.

Johanna Primevert, chief spokeswoman for the Paris police department, said this kind of attack, in which armed robbers posed as police and targeted a private apartment, was “very, very rare” in Paris. She said the attackers had gone after goods that Kardashian West had shown on social media.

The attack happened at an exclusive, private apartment building known as a “No Address” site, where celebrities staying in Paris often rent sumptuous suites. The main door to the street is unmarked, giving the guests privacy, but the site was thought to have less security protection than Paris’s luxury hotels. The rest of the Kardashian family were staying at a hotel.

Jeanne d’Hauteserre, mayor of Paris’s 8th arrondissement where the robbery took place, told the French TV channel BFMTV that she suspected Kardashian West had either been followed or there had been some kind of tip-off that led to the theft.